Sixties playback singer Usha Timothy remembers an anecdote about the singer during the recording of Ae sapnon ke raja (film: Nateeja, 1969) that she co-sang with the veteran singer. Shamshad Begum was proud of her voice and hated being photographed. I was made to stand on a school bench and lead the school prayer after that,” she told film journalist Lata Khubchandani in an interview several years ago. One day the principal announced that there was one voice that stood out. “When I joined school in Lahore, we used to sing a prayer before our classes. But the two sang plenty of songs together some of whom are popular to this day such as Holi aayi re kanhai (film: Mother India) and Door koi gaye (film: Baiju Bawra, 1952)Įven as a child, her voice was special. In the 1950s, there was industry gossip about rivalry between them. That she never sang with K L Saigal remained an everlasting regret for her. “The song, Saawan ke nazare hain, from Khazanchi (1941) became wildly popular,”recalls Khayyam. Her earliest film hits came with composer Ghulam Haider. Shamshad Begum first made her mark singing non-filmi songs for AIR’s Lahore station in 1930s. But her biggest chartbusters came from Naushad (Jadoo, Anokhi Ada, Mela, Dulari, Mother India, Mughal-e-Azam) and O P Nayyar (CID, Naya Daur, Kismet). Ghulam Haider, Anil Biswas, Sajjad, C Ramchandra, S D Burman and Shankar-Jaikishan, she sang for all music maestros in the 1940s and 1950s. You can call me unlucky that I couldn’t work with her,” says renowned composer Khayyam. And as a person, she was humble and disciplined. A surprisingly high number of her smash hits were remixed: starlet Tanushree Dutta gyrated sexily to the reworked rhythms of Saiyan dil mein aana re (film: Bahar, 1951). Ask any wedding band master, even today there’s no better bidaai song than Pee ke ghar aaj pyaari dulhaniya chali (film: Mother India, 1957) and Chhod babul ka ghar mohe pee ke nagar (film: Babul, 1950).